“She knew that this was happiness, this was living as she had always wished to live.”

“He lacked tenderness; he was rude; and he had more than a streak of cruelty in him; he was a thief and a liar. He stood for everything she feared and hated and despised; but she knew she could love him... This was no choice made with the mind.”

“She had to live in this bright, red gabled house with the nurse until it was time for her to die... I thought how little we know about the feelings of old people. Children we understand, their fears and hopes and make-believe.”

“What was the point of having a man if all he could do was turn his back and sleep? Not that she wanted him to do anything else, but in a way it was an insult. The turned back reminded her of all the various backs that had not been turned. Which was a depressing thought, because it meant she was beginning to live in the past. Backs That Were Never Turned. The Reminisces of Maria Delaney...No, it was not depressing. It was funny.”

“I wonder ... when it was that the world first went amiss, and men forgot how to live and to love and to be happy.”

“As I stood there,hushed and still,I could swear that the house was not an empty shell but lived and breathed as it had lived before.”

“I could fight with the living but I could not fight the dead. If there was some woman in London that Maxim loved, someone he wrote to, visited, dined with, slept with, I could fight her. We would stand on common ground. I should not be afraid. Anger and jealousy were things that could be conquered. One day the woman would grow old or tired or different, and Maxim would not love her anymore. But Rebecca would never grow old. Rebecca would always be the same. And she and I could not fight. She was too strong for me.”